The strain on personal budgets, especially since the onset of the recession, has forced many persons to employ a site template in building a website. For others, it is a matter of skill, or the lack of it, or even time restrictions that drive one to rely on templates.

Numerous website templates can be had at no cost online, but often with conditions.

So, there are a few basic things to do when going through the list to find one to suit your needs. That is after you have decided on an appropriate name which summarises well your offerings and, further, whether you need a simple blogger theme or website of templates to give you uniform appeal.

Design is critical

The first step is to choose a comfortable variety of designs which represent even the slightest impression of your character, and make note of the source of that site template. Make sure the template sample can strongly reflect your product or service, when information is applied, and be so attractive that even a flitting visitor stops and takes note.

Therefore, conceptualise the mood of the site, e.g. pay attention to the colours, tones, fonts, as well as the possibility of changing these indices, should the need arise. Also ask yourself if the site reflects well the intended image, such as business, personal, portfolio.

Afterwards, you are going to narrow the choices as you apply other yardsticks.

These yardsticks may include:

Accessibility to the template's designer or creator. Make sure there is access to at least one workable contact.

Manipulation power

Ability to add features such as calendars, music, albums, downloadable options, comments area, contact form.

Ease of template, and access to the root site and/or holding folders. How easy is the site to navigate through.

Flexibility in changing around elements of the templates such as widgets, blogs, adding categories, banner heads, background photos.

Conditions upon which you are allowed to use the templates. This may include whether there is an eventual cost affixed or where the template might be free, or a simple donation is required. You might also want to consider how much publicity you end up giving the creator of the site in terms of marketing.

Sometimes, the creator's name or design credit is embedded, and cannot be changed, regardless of how many changes you make to the site's original appearance. Further, you might not be allowed to add credits to the fixed template on behalf of the host or technicians, who may also be in a deal with you for their services.

The matter of advertisements is one that should be taken seriously. Aside from soliciting advertisements and, hence, needing established slots to place them, there are website operators who allow you to network with them and earn added income through placing advertisements on their behalf.

On one hand, you may need to check whether slots can be provided, or the degree of difficulty of adding advertisement images of different sizes in required areas such as to the side of an article, or as a banner. On the other hand, networking advertising companies sometimes allow you to create your own size, narrowing down the content to relate to potential visitors and, in the end, provide you with a code to place on the pages or templates of your sites.

These codes, once activated on the site of origin, appear according to the preferences you selected, such as size and content. Google AdSense is a popular choice. However, for this feature, you must check if you have control over changing the HTML coding, or whether the hosting company offering the templates is the one which will ultimately benefit from advertisements placed. The company would do this by embedding its ID into your creation, which ultimately overrides your codes and ID generated with the originating networking advertising company's.

This denies you the opportunity to place or earn income from any placed advertisements, in exchange for their 'free' templates, and, in some cases, 'free' hosting. Care must be taken as, aside from not earning, you ultimately are the one to introduce new visitors to its site and, in some instances, the hosting company is advertised at your expense without you even appearing in search engines.

Strive, therefore, for a site with flexibility, that is, if you want to earn additional income which can go towards defraying maintenance cost of the site.

The challenge of hosting

These considered, you now must move on to the challenge of hosting. Choose your host wisely. Do some research into the background of companies that offer free hosting, especially when it comes to hosting of free websites you build using their templates.

Check them, above all, for reliability, especially when it comes to addressing technical problems, and consistency in maintaining your presence on the Web. In my experience, Wix.com has been reliable, and even provides a good interactive expert team for constant reference within good timing.

Always remember, though, that there are levels to what companies offer, whether website themes, templates or hosting. You may gain better access and more manipulation power as you upgrade from one level to the next, sometimes at a cost - financial or otherwise - so check this out too.

Anthea McGibbon, a writer on the arts and other subjects, is the operator of the website www.antheamcgibbon.com.